From:  (Andrew Bromage)
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Women in Leadership
Date: 5 Jun 1998 08:22:30 GMT

G'day all.

Richard Kerr <> writes:

>>Until someone can come up with an example of how it would make men
>>behave differently to women it's exactly the same as saying that men and
>>women ought to behave the same way, isn' it? After being quite concerned
>>about it at one time, I can now no longer see why anyone bothers to talk
>>about it at all.

Richard, I think part of the problem here (and I mean this with the
greatest respect) is that you have an excellent relationship with your
wife, and so you assume that everyone else does, too.  I see the idea
of headship as part of an attempt to sort out dysfunctionality of the
kind that you personally do not experience.

The "tyrant husband" is one kind of dysfunctionality.  The "do-nothing
wimp husband" is another.  There are also dysfunctionalities which lie
with wives.  Look at the archetypical "praiseworthy woman" from the
closing chapter of Proverbs.  She is strong, capable, intelligent, and
a businesswoman in her own right.  So here, we might identify the
"doormat wife" as another dysfunction.

As for headship, we might draw the analogy of a family as a ship.  The
captain of a ship is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the
crew.  You are asking: When does this become important thing to keep in
mind?  Well, under normal circumstances, it shouldn't be so important a
distinction.  A perfect, well-functioning ship doesn't have barked
orders, senior officers pulling rank or whatever.  It becomes important
when, say, the ship runs aground, or the appropriate maritime authority
finds that the ship is not safe, or if the captain mistreats the crew
(perhaps to the point of mutiny).

BTW, I think that part of the problem of interpreting Ephesians 5 is
that people tend to forget that it was primarily directed to husbands.
I'm going to paste some slightly edited notes I have sitting around
(after reading an article from the Wesleyan Theological Journal from a
few years back by a theologian with the unfortunate name "Fred
Layman"):

Wives were told to be subject to their husbands (v21--24) and

to show respect (v33) to them without further specification.

This is nothing new --- wives had been doing this for

centuries.  What we have to concentrate on is what is new and

innovative in the "new order", which is the call for husbands

to also enter into the relationship of submission.

The comparison is with Christ's headship towards the Church.

This was expressed as the role of Saviour (v23), love (v25),

self-sacrifice (v25), provision (v26), nourishing (v29), and

cherishing (v29).  This analogy cannot be divorced (to use an

unfortunate term) from the idea of Christ's emptying of himself

(Phil 2:5--8).  As Christ left his Father's home to take up

obedient submission, so husband must leave the home of his

parents and enter a relationship of commitment and subjection

with his wife (vv21,33).

"The kind of submission Paul talked about then was intertwined

with love.  It implied a readiness to renounce one's own will

for the sake of others, to give precedence to others."

 (Ken Smith) writes:

>Well, the Promise Keepers in USA decided that their marriage vows
>weren't enough, and had to have something extra so that they would
>treat their wives properly.

Maybe they did need something extra.  I think that might be a commentary
on the men in question rather than marriage vows. :-)

>(You might suspect, correctly, that I am not too keen on the PK
>movement.)

Ah, come on.  Their hearts are in the right place, whatever one might
think of they ways they've chosen to express themselves. :-)

Cheers,
Andrew Bromage